


the weight of living

by etben



Category: Songs for a New World - Brown
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etben/pseuds/etben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The facts of the case, such as they are, are simple enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the weight of living

**Author's Note:**

  * For [russian_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Russian_Blue! Thanks for the opportunity to explore this tiny gem of a song in more detail.

I’ll be honest with you: I didn’t particularly want to do a story on Jason Roberts. I was a kid when he rose to power; barely even a teenager when he fell back out of it. He’s been in prison since before I hit puberty, and so, for me, he’s never quite been real—a touchstone of my parents’ generation, but not of mine.

But my editor asked me to do a piece on him—a sort of _Where Are They Now?_ for deposed demagogues—and mine was not to reason why.

So off to the Chesapeake Bay Detention Facility I went, to take the measure of a man who's been in jail for over thirty years.

*

The facts of the case, such as they are, are simple enough. Roberts was born in Baltimore, in a neighborhood where young men are, even now, more likely to go to jail than they are to go to college. His father left the family when Roberts was only five years old, leaving Roberts and his sisters to the mercies of a rotating cast of aunts, cousins, and family friends.

As a young man, Roberts initially dreamed of fame and fortune as a basketball star, and in fact did sign with the Maryland Bayraiders for a short time before being cut in 2008. At this point, Roberts dropped even further off of anybody's radar, working odd jobs and watching his sisters.

In late 2013, he exploded onto the national stage when his _Power & Promise_ videos went viral. Even now, you can see why: Roberts is compelling, passionate, articulate. His videos are short - the longest is just over a minute - but trenchant analyses of the problems in his community and his country.

When the videos went viral, and donations started coming in, Roberts quickly went corporate: Power & Promise, Inc, a nonprofit geared at helping low-income children realize their potential. They raised a quarter of a million dollars in the first three days of their inaugural fundraising campaign—then more than tripled that in the next week.

In 2016, Power & Promise, Inc, was the target of federal RICO charges; accused of money laundering after accepting generous donations from criminal organizations up and down the eastern seaboard. Roberts was indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced to two life sentences. His wife, from whom he is separated, has remained at the head of Power & Promise, Inc, running a greatly scaled-back operation.

And Roberts? He’s in jail.

*

The first thing you need to know about Jason Roberts, and the most important, is this: he's an incredibly charismatic man. His face is creased with generous smile lines, his eyes twinkle, and his overall demeanor is much more kindly benefactor than hardened criminal.

"Thank you so much for coming to see me," he says, shaking my hand in both of his, and the funny thing—the crazy thing—is that he honestly makes me believe it. The story that I'm writing isn't meant to help him; if anything, it's meant to reassure people that this dangerous lunatic is still locked safely away. I had to beg Roberts' lawyer for the chance to interview him, but from the way he greets me, you would think that he had specifically requested to speak with me.

Thirty two years on—halfway through the first of two life sentences—he is remarkably consistent with his story. He did not kill his son, and he has no idea who did. He did take money from people he knew to be engaged in criminal enterprises, and while he acknowledges that his actions were illegal, he says that he would not act any differently today.

"When you see a group of people, who have so much, and who are willing to use it to help those in need—" He shrugs, shakes his head. "I know what the law is, but I also feel that there is something wrong with our world, when we aren’t able to put that money to good use.” The ends justify the means — but, no, he corrects me; that’s not quite it.

“I can’t justify what I did, not on any legal level,” he tells me. “It was illegal, and it was wrong, and I knew both of those things when I was doing it.”

Then why did he do it?

 

“I didn’t care,” he tells me, with a wry grin. “I was thinking of the children.”

*

If the scandal of the RICO charges was the first strike against Roberts’ credibility, his son’s disappearance was the final blow. Jason Roberts, Jr., age sixteen, disappeared on the way home from the library one day; neither Roberts nor his wife has ever been able to explain his disappearance.

“I was never charged,” Roberts tells me. “I think they knew they couldn’t make it stick, so why bother?” He spreads his hands. “It definitely colors people’s opinion of me, though.”

That much is unquestionably true; when I mentioned to a friend that I was doing a piece on Roberts, she thought of him first and foremost as, “that guy who—didn’t he murder his kid? Or kidnap him, or something?” Roberts’ work with Power & Promise, Inc, the RICO charges against him—none of that registered with her.

Roberts has never wavered in his story: he has no idea what happened to his son.

“I hope he’s all right,” he tells me. “Wherever he is, whatever happened—I hope he’s all right, and I hope that I see him someday.”

That seems unlikely, at this point in time. Assuming he’s alive, Jason Roberts, Jr., would be in his late 40s right now, a man full-grown. It’s hard to imagine the kind of circumstances that would lead him to break such a long-held silence.

“You’re not wrong,” his father tells me. “But with God, all things are possible.”

*

Roberts’ faith is one of the most remarkable things about him. His Power & Promise videos are full of religious rhetoric, citing things that God wants Roberts to do. I watched a few of the videos—they’re all online, still, even after everything—and was struck both by how deeply Roberts believed, and by how joyous that belief was for him.

“God has spoken to me,” he says, repeatedly. “God has spoken, and I know that this is the course.” His eyes close, and the video freezes on his face: exhausted, but deeply content.

Perhaps I’m just too much of a cynic; I ask Roberts about it—about all of the God stuff. Did he really feel that God was speaking to him?

“Now, see, that’s an interesting way to put it,” he tells me, smiling. “Because, would you say that you _feel_ that I am speaking to you right now?” I would not, I admit. “Of course you wouldn’t—you would say that you _know_ that you are talking to me, or quite simply, that you _are_ talking to me.” He folds his hands in his lap, leans his chair back against the wall.

“I know that this is hard for people to accept, but it’s still the truth: God spoke to me, God told me that this needed to be done, that I was the man to do it.”

And now?

“I have faith,” he says. “I must have faith.”

*

It seems difficult to have faith from a prison cell. When I say as much, I see the first crack in Roberts’ genial granddaddy demeanor: he looks old, suddenly, and tired, and sad.

“Of course it is difficult,” he says, reprovingly. “That’s what faith is, isn’t it? A conviction of things not seen?” He shakes his head. “If I had something I could point to, some external proof, it would be easier...but it wouldn’t be faith anymore.”

Some people might consider everything that’s happened to Roberts since 2016—the conviction, his son’s disappearance—to be pretty persuasive, as external proof goes. Roberts, however, is unconvinced.

“The courts are the work of man,” he tells me, “and like man, they are inherently flawed. We can work to make them better, but they are still human creations, and they will still make mistakes.” He folds his hands in his lap and leans back against the cinderblock wall of his cell. “I will be tried by a higher court, someday, in the next world, and I am confident that I will not be found guilty there.”

There are plenty of people right here in this world who don’t think Roberts is guilty. As I leave the Chesapeake Bay Detention Facility, I pass a ragged cluster of protesters whose signs exhort me to _FREE THE KING NOW_ and ask for _POWER, PROMISE, & JUSTICE_. They’re out here most days after 5, they tell me—not always these few in particular, but somebody.

“We all grew up around here,” Latifah Thomas tells me, to a chorus of nods. “ _Power and Promise_ saved our lives.” Some of them went to college on grants from the foundation; others found housing, jobs, or legal aid through the foundation’s drop-in clinics.

“Jason Roberts is a great man,” they tell me. “We just want to see justice done.”

It's hard to say what that might look like, but for what it's worth? So do I.


End file.
